In this book we meet Alleluia, the newest archangel, and Delilah, a fallen archangel, among a large cast of other characters. Both angels are unhappy and this book chronicles their separate journeys to reach where they both truly belong. There's also flooding, communication problems with their God, interstellar travel, disillusionment, miracles, an exodus... you know how much I dislike summaries. (I do like making lists, though.)
I liked this book a lot. I saw a lot of religion in the first book and if one reads this one from the same point of view, one might be....disturbed? The question of God is further investigated and the conclusions are very ambiguous.
This book was also much more reminiscent of Anne McCaffrey's Dragons of Pern series. The political intrigue, the relationships between a "higher" class of beings...I don't want to make any more comparisons lest I give too much away.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the series. I am really enjoying the writing of Sharon Shinn. Oh, there is one thing that bothers me in this series (and in the McCaffrey series too) and it's pretty subtle here (less subtle in McCaffrey) and that is that the most sympathetic characters are also the most inclined to glorify extra- or pre-marital sexual relationships. As if these are the most evolved and most enlightened kinds of romantic relationships and those that are more chaste are rather backwards. Hm. Sharon Shinn isn't particularly heavy-handed with this very socially current theme, but she's included it in no uncertain terms. It bothers me. But! There are no graphic sex scenes and no bad language. It's an interesting and an entertaining book. I still really enjoy all the religious references. I find them thought provoking. So far I find this series very good.
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